Moderators Youthman Posted July 1, 2008 Moderators Share Posted July 1, 2008 I sat down tonight to watch Hero with Jet Li after visiting Circuit City the other night and watching the demo in their showroom. It looked like it had some great sound effects and so I thought I would run it through my RF-83's. I'm not a fan of subtitles so I watched the movie in English Dolby Digital. The only option for DTS was Chinese with subtitles. The movie had some really good scenes with great sound effects. After the movie, I wanted to compare the two formats. I set my volume on my Onkyo at -10dB which is quite loud for movies. I jumped to the scene where Jet Li is in the room of scrolls and he stomps his foot down, the cup rises in the air, he flies around the room cutting the spindles of wood, lands and the scrolls fall to the floor in a loud rumble. In English Dolby Digital, it sounded good, but not super impressive. I rewound the scene and switched to Chinese DTS. Oh my goodness! I almost wet myself. It was aLOT louder than the DD at the same volume but the biggest difference was the sharpness of the sword slicing through the cables, then when the cables began to snap, I was wondering if my center channel was going to blow. Nope! The RC-7 and RF-83's handled it without a sign of breakup or distortion. I was blown away by the quality of sound I was hearing. The LFE in the DTS was much stronger as well than in DD. I'm not sure if all DTS vs DD comparisons are like this but in this movie, DTS was CLEARLY the victor! Just wanted to share my review of the Onkyo TX-SR703 in DTS with the RF-83's, RC-7 and the Velodyne F-1500. Absolutely amazing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 Most comments I've heard have been similar to your experience. Many will prefer the DTS over the DD track of a movie/concert any day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Youthman Posted July 1, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted July 1, 2008 Yeah, I read some in the forums but figured I would share my own experience. Can't wait to one day be able to check out the new HD audio formats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popbumper Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Agreed, I wish more movies would offer DTS soundtracks; I have always preferred it. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunburnwilly Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I will watch any movie with a DTS soundtrack and that's saying something ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 2, 2008 Moderators Share Posted July 2, 2008 Try a concert DVD in DTS ! [Y] Blows away a CD of the same music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Welcome aboard the DTS train ............... what took you guys so long ?? ........... DTS is awesome, When done right !!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordan Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Yeah, I read some in the forums but figured I would share my own experience. Can't wait to one day be able to check out the new HD audio formats. You thought DD to DTS was a jump, just wait for HD audio and you will once again wet yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CECAA850 Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 Yeah, I read some in the forums but figured I would share my own experience. Can't wait to one day be able to check out the new HD audio formats. You thought DD to DTS was a jump, just wait for HD audio and you will once again wet yourself. Lossless is a really nice step up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wsu99999 Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 The bandwith of the DTS signal is almost double of Dolby. I don't exactly know how that works over the same wires but dolby is at 640k and dts is at 1.2m (rough numbers). The doubling of availible bandwith allows for more encoding and thus the greater detail. Can anyone elaborate further on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 "The bandwith of the DTS signal is almost double of Dolby. I don't exactly know how that works over the same wires but dolby is at 640k and dts is at 1.2m (rough numbers). The doubling of availible bandwith allows for more encoding and thus the greater detail. Can anyone elaborate further on this?" DTS had roughly double the bandwidth in the LD days. When DVDs came out they went to half rate so the bandwidth difference between the two is not nearly as big as it was. Bandwidth alone doesn't mean much since the efficiency/quality of the encoder plays a very large roll in all this. For example compare two MP3s at the same data rate but one encoded with xing and the other with LAME. Or even give xing more bandwidth then lame and the lame encoding may still sound better due to better encoding. DTS has long been know to play games with encodings and levels which makes comparisons difficult since simpe level differences can be heard as differences in sound quality. For example this comparison is interesting: http://highfidelityreview.com/tech/germerica.asp The MLP version is bit perfect (lossless) to what was in the studio. The DD track is far closer to that reference then the DTS encoding was. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Youthman Posted July 2, 2008 Author Moderators Share Posted July 2, 2008 Thx for the info guys. I am a bit behind in the audio world. Had my older DD Onkyo for awhile. It wasn't until my wife suggested that I build a dedicated theater room in the home we are going to build that I began to revisit the world of audio. I sold my older Onkyo and bought an HK with DTS, then upgraded from there to my current DTS Onkyo. This is just a temporary receiver till we get the house finished, then I will look into upgrading to a current receiver or even a pre/pro setup. Definitely will have an external amp (200 x 5 )either way. I have a long way to go but it will be worth it in the end to finally get everything setup the way I want it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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